Budgets for Top Federal R&D Agencies
The U.S. House of Representatives delivered a bumper crop for science in its fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget--but the R&D harvest still has a slight chance to be delayed or threatened by cows. Congressional moos reportedly filled the House chambers after the announcement that Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) planned to delay voting on a bill that would finalize a $1.8 trillion budget. Kohl's beef had nothing to do with science, but rather, with dairy subsidies that he says unfairly help New England farmers while letting Midwestern milkers languish.
But science, at least, hasn't languished in the FY2000 budget proceedings. After summer concerns that R&D could take a several-billion-dollar hit in efforts to keep figures under caps established to meet balanced budget requirements, lawmakers silently let the cap argument slide. "The caps technically exist. In practice, they've been blown," comments Kei Koizumi, the head American ...
